Flash
by The Cell
Summary: "It's in Westerville, Ohio." That was a bit of a shock. "Never heard of it." "It's small." Her mother answered brightly, as though that were explanation enough. "You hate small towns." Hermione/Jesse/Blaine
1. Chapter 1

Right. I should clarify; this is actually Jesse/Hermione/Blaine and is written for a friend who has been convincing me to write all manner of odd crossover pairings lately (including one starring Spot Conlon). Anyway, she liked this one so I'm posting it. I know Glee has a lot of die-hard fans, but I haven't actually seen very many episodes (I started watching when this story was demanded of me a couple of weeks ago).

Also, as usual, I don't own any of the characters or places and so on and so forth.

* * *

Hermione tapped answer on her phone for the third time in as many minutes. Between her magic and her mother's technophobia it was a wonder they ever managed to speak at all. "Mum, where are you?" She could hear people milling about in the background and her mother telling her father it was working.

Finally her mother seemed to remember why she was holding her phone in her hand and lifted it back up to her ear. "O'Hare sweetie. You're still coming to the party right? Your father and I really want to make an entrance." Her mother had always enjoyed 'making an entrance'. It was her code for the massive party Hermione was forced to smile through every time they moved or her parents changed friends. They seemed to do the latter with an alarming frequency. When they moved and opened their clinic in Oxford there had been a party so grand that Hermione at five years old had been convinced she had fallen into a storybook.

"Of course I'm coming mum, you still haven't told me where we're going." She suddenly heard a rustling and realized she had been put in the purse while her mother routed around for a piece of paper. Her father clearly took pity on them both and held the phone for her. "Thank you daddy."

"You're welcome dear, I'll let you two keep talking."

"I know I have the address here somewhere, but you always say I have to make sure no one can see you so I figured you don't need it until I get there to see. It's in Westerville, Ohio." That was a bit of a shock.

"Never heard of it."

"It's small." Her mother answered brightly, as though that were explanation enough.

"You hate small towns." It was true. Her mother was born in London and had always resented the countryside, she hadn't appreciated Oxford, especially in the summer when all the students left.

Her mother seemed undaunted however and continued equally brightly. "Yes, but your father and I have decided we need a little bit of a break. I'm sure we'll move back to a bigger city in a few years. It's just with everything that happened…" Her mother was afraid, and that was all on her.

She sighed. "I get it."

"I know sweetie, you always do. Now I know you're not going to live with us, you're an adult and that is fine, but I expect you to visit. I know how you travel, there are no excuses."

"Of course mum."

"Ok, I have to board now, I'll call you when I get there."

"Bye mum." She put the phone down and continued placing everything she owned into her little beaded bag, not that there was much to pack. Her mother may have decided that settling down in a small town in middle America was a perfect solution, but she knew she couldn't do the same. She knew it wasn't healthy, but she was still running. Harry had been so relieved that it was all over that he had settled in almost instantly, come to a complete stop, right next to Ginny. Ron had gone home, sat down and not moved, speaking only to his family for a month.

Hermione had tried to stop. She moved in with Harry and Ginny for a while, joined the ministry at Kingsley's insistence and was quickly snapped up by the unspeakables. She was restless. She took off site missions as often as she could, and as she delivered results she could get them a lot. She moved out of Grimmauld and into a small flat close to the ministry. She hadn't bothered to decorate it. There was a bed and a kitchen table and very little else. She didn't even unpack much. She had unloaded the boxes from her childhood home in one corner, but everything remained neatly stacked. Everything important remained in her bag, just in case.

She had put in the application to work 'from home' earlier that week. It meant she would only come in for experiments and the like, and to leave reports, otherwise her assignments would be sent to her and she would work from where she was. It wasn't uncommon for unspeakables to work mainly off site, the department was often almost empty. It was a combination of their wish to keep everything hush hush, including the identities of their employees, and their tendency to hire 'eccentrics'.

She had been sitting in the park outside her flat for almost four hours when her phone buzzed from the depths of her purse. She started and grabbed for it only to realize she had managed to short out the phone again with the burst of accidental magic she let out at the shock. She took out and replaced the battery, all the while praying that she hadn't managed to melt anything and was relieved to hear the annoying tinkling of the thing starting up. The little flashing envelope on the screen announced that her father had sent her a picture message. There was a picture of a kitchen, and underneath it was an address and a set of coordinates. She smiled and spun on the spot.

Straightening out her clothes she walked out into the large room which was to act as a ballroom for the night. She suspected it might be a gymnasium of some kind, but her mother had managed to cover the floor and walls almost completely. She spotted her mother directing flowers around the room. Behind here were four boys, probably in their late teens. Looking them over she realized they must be the dancers her mother had hired. Her mother had always been a fan of live statues. Her mother spotted her finally.

"Oh good. John! Hermione's here."

"Oh good, I've missed you sweetie."

"You too dad." She turned to the five boys who were staring at her. Odd, she felt sure the one in the bow tie hadn't been there a second ago. "Um, hello, nice to meet you all." She sent a questioning glance at her mother.

"Oh, of course. Boys, this is my daughter, Hermione. Hermione, these fine young gentlemen will be entertaining at our little soiree."

She smirked at her mother. "Are you going to make them stand on pedestals?"

"Maybe."

"Are you going to make _me_ stand on a pedestal?" Her mother gave a sheepish look.

"Just for a little while sweetie. You don't mind do you?"

"Of course, where is the costume?" Last time she had been Cinderella, she wondered what the theme would be this time. Her mother enjoyed dressing her up almost as much as she liked having parties.

Her father was the one that answered before heading back outside, presumably to speak to the valet. "Back room, through that door." Her mother continued ushering catering personnel and florists around the room. She shook her head and made her way through the door her father had indicated to find a white dress and tights along with her pointe shoes. She quickly shed her jeans and sweater and picked up the dress. It wasn't quite as garish as some of the previous outfits she had been forced into, in fact it was quite...pretty.

There was a knock at the door. "Um, miss Granger?" A hesitant voice just barely made it through the thick wood door. "It's um, Blaine…Anderson, I'm one of the…entertainers."

"Come on in." Hermione called over her shoulder. She heard the door open, followed by a startled squeak and the hasty slamming of the door. She turned to find one very red teenage boy pushing furiously at the door. "Oh, sorry, I've gotten so used to living with boys I don't always think. I'm all covered up now, you can relax. Also, that door opens in." She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I am so sorry miss Granger, I didn't mean to walk in on you."

"It's fine, I don't mind, you seem more upset by it than I am, should I be offended? Zip please." She indicated the half done side zip of her dress. His hands were still shaking slightly as he did the zipper up.

"No, no I mean you're um…very attractive and um…"

"Blaine, I'm joking. I'm not going to tell on you or anything. You seem very worked up. Is anything the matter?"

"No, I um."

"You say um an awful lot, stop that. Now, first of all, my name is Hermione, miss Granger is what my teachers call me. Second, I assume you came in here for a reason, and all we've ascertained so far is that it wasn't to watch me change." She felt slightly bad, but he was blushing adorably, it was making it very hard to wipe the smirk from her face.

He shook his head rapidly, in a vain attempt to clear his head. "No, of course. I was in the kitchen earlier and I…" Suddenly her lingering smile disappeared and the colour drained from her face.

"Oh dear." Her hand found her wand and turned it softly, getting ready to release it from its well hidden holster.  
His eyes seemed impossibly large she realised as she tried to avoid them. "Are you magic?"

"Oh this is not good, so not good."

"You are aren't you? You're magic."

"I…yes." He was staring at her in wide eyed wonder and he reminded her so much of Harry, seeing Hogwarts for the first time. She couldn't bear to take it away from him, but knowing about magic was dangerous for muggles, the statute wasn't just to protect wizards. There had been plenty of records of people being thrown into asylums, even in the olden days being burned as witches themselves.

"I won't tell anyone, I promise. I just…You're magic. You're like the coolest thing ever." She couldn't stop the scoff at that.

"Oh trust me Blaine, I'm not. Look, I don't want to frighten you, but what you've found out is much more secret than you know. If anyone finds out that you know, someone will come and take away your memory. I hate the practice, especially after… well. This is very important, no one must know." He nodded happily, reminding her a little of her father's collection of bobble heads.

"I promise. Will you tell me about magic?" She couldn't of course, that would be wildly inappropriate, it would compromise her job for one thing, not to mention the trouble she could get in with the rest of the ministry.

She looked at him, still grinning madly at her. "I will, but not here. Why don't you come over to my parents' house for dinner tomorrow?" She would call the obliviators. It was an honest mistake, they would just wipe an hour from his memory, it wouldn't be so bad.

"Really?" He sounded absolutely thrilled.

"Of course. It would be nice to have a friend here." It would. Of course Hermione wouldn't be able to meet his eyes again after what she was planning.

"Are you moving here with your parents?"

"No, I'll be on my own, but I'll be visiting frequently."

"That's great." He seemed so...nice. It was making her slightly nervous. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and went to change the subject to something more safe, something that had nothing to do with her past.

"So, where did my mother find you?"

"I'm not sure exactly. One of my old vocal coaches called and asked if I'd be interested in working tonight and you know, any experience is good right?"

"Yes, I suppose it must be. Vocal coach. I assume she'll have you singing then. Are the other boys your classmates?"

"No, well two of them go to the same school as me." He opened the door behind him, pointing over to the two who were laughing together in one corner. "Frank and Lucas, over there, we're in the same show choir. I don't know the really tall one, but apparently he had the same coach."

Her eyes fell on the last boy. He was tall with curly hair and quite sharp features. Very handsome, not nearly as sweet as Blaine. "And the last one?"

"Jesse St. James." The awed whisper was a bit of a shock after the chattiness of his other comments. It was just a name, no explanation. She smirked again. She had heard that tone before, whispering the name Harry Potter, and lately the same tone had been applied to her own name. It wasn't dissimilar to the way he had said magic minutes ago.

"That good huh?" She sent out a passive sensor toward Jesse St. James, she was fairly certain he wasn't magical but one could never be too safe.

Blaine snapped back to look at her. "What?" She turned back, satisfied that any magic Blaine saw in Mr St. James was strictly of the muggle kind. She smiled.

"The way you said his name, it was almost…reverent."

"Oh." He blushed again. "He's the star of vocal adrenaline, they're the best show choir around. He's really good." A singer then. Not surprising of course, considering what they were there for.

Her voice took on an almost sing-song quality. "Sounds like someone has a bit of a crush…"

"What!? No I…" He stuttered and shifted and averted his gaze. She immediately felt bad, clearly they were not familiar enough for that kind of teasing.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

He looked up at her and she wasn't sure if he was going to forgive her or make a hasty retreat out to his friends. As it turned out he did neither. "How did you know I was gay?" ...Well then. That was certainly not what she had expected.

"Are you? I wouldn't have pegged you for it, and my sense is impeccable. I'm never usually that wrong. Very advanced gaydar." She tapped her nose, grinning, hoping the tension would be broken and Blaine would go back to grinning.

He didn't smile, but he did drop his panicked look in favour of a confused frown though. "But you thought I liked him? That would make me gay, wouldn't it?"

"Oh well no, not necessarily. I find sexuality is rarely that simple, for some people it is. I bet you anything that one over there, Lucas was it? Kinsey six, flinches at the sight of naked breast gay. Frank almost opposite, might appreciate the male form, but touching naked boy, not his thing." She was right. It was almost creepy, but mostly fascinating. "Tall one, possibly homophobic, definitely eyes forward in the changing room. Lover boy over there, what I like to call omni-sexual, like captain Jack, sounds better than calling him loose. Easy to get, close to impossible to keep."

"So what did you think I was?"

"You seem like one of a rare breed, the fairy-tale romantic. True love and forever afters and all that." She was right; his blush told her that much.

"You think I'm ridiculous don't you?"

"Not at all, quite on the contrary. The world needs more of you, I used to know one. If you don't lose that you can light up people's lives to no end."

"Did they, the one you knew, lose it?"

She had only spoken to Cedric Diggory on a handful of occasions, usually late Fridays in the library. He had been surprisingly shy, and amazing at transfiguration, and had been completely convinced that he would find a true love, one girl or boy who would be perfect for him in every way. He had often tried to convince her of the same. She could easily picture him jumping up on a table and reciting Shakespeare to her for no reason other than to cheer her up. "Never, but we lost him." She could just as easily see him lifeless on the grass next to the high hedges. His relentless insistence that there was someone for her had only served to make her impressionable teenage mind put him in that place. She had been crushed at his death.

"So what are you?"

"I wish I could say I was like you, but I'm really closer to him. I tend to gravitate toward males, but I'm not immune to the softer charm of certain girls. I'm not promiscuous by any means, but my tastes vary." There had indeed been a few girls that caught her interest, but none had kept it for long. No one had really. Ron had kept her interest for a long time of course, but only until she had his. She wondered fleetingly if that made her a bad person, if she only enjoyed the chase.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I have your wings." She wasn't sure how she had missed them. They were beautiful wings, well made and covered in soft down, but they were very large.

"My what?" She hoped she wouldn't be the one to wear them, but she knew she would be. They looked very cumbersome.

"Wings, I think you're supposed to be an angel." He handed over the snowy white wings and headed out through the still open door.

"Of course I am. I thought it seemed a bit understated." She looked longingly at the simple white dress in the mirror before donning the wings, discreetly fastening them with magic once Blaine had closed the door behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Not mine in any way shape or form.

* * *

When she finally left the comfort of the back room she had been hiding in the room had descended into pandemonium. Hermione's mother was shouting, quite loudly at someone Hermione could only assume was the caterer while the florists and decorator were still hurrying around the room.

"And that is why I am never getting married." She heard a snort and turned to find Jesse St. James standing behind her, now dressed in his own costume. He too was wearing wings, black and even larger than her own and she felt for him. His were not, as hers were, feather light and naturally attached. Her shoulders ached with the phantom pain of the thin wires they were attached with. He didn't seem bothered.

She started slightly when he started speaking, realising she'd been staring and quickly fell into her stretches. "Really now? Because the caterer didn't bring enough cold cuts? Seems a bit harsh to me." She smiled. She wasn't sure why.

"No, because this is what my mother calls a 'little get together', if I ever get married it will be massive, things will go wrong, and my mother will end up in prison for murder." She was only half joking. During the brief period she had entertained thoughts of marrying Ron she had often envisioned eloping, possibly to Greta Green or Paris, and then taking an extended honeymoon until at least the public had forgotten about them.

Jesse looked her up and down. "So you're a ballerina?" His eyebrow was raised as she rose into an arabesque, getting a feel for the wings, twisting to avoid them hitting the back of her leg.

She looked over to where Emma Granger was now smiling proudly at her. "Mother always wanted me to be a prima ballerina, father wanted me to be a barrister. I did my best to make both of them happy, but then other things got in the way. I could still be a barrister of course, but the ship has sailed for my mother I'm afraid."  
"You stopped training?"

"Formally. I kept dancing, but it dropped too far down my list of priorities. You know the kind of passion required to be a performer, and the time and dedication people put in just to dance in the background. I gave up that dream a long time ago."

"No you didn't."

"What?"

"You still have it, you still want it. There is a fire in your eyes that is captivating. You may think you're too old to start up again, to become something, but you haven't given up. How long ago did you give up classical training?"

"Seven years."

"My point. No one keeps form like this, and more to the point keeps dancing in pointe shoes, for seven years just for fun. Not to mention you clearly kept the eating habits. You have plenty of passion and determination. I can see that and I barely know you."

"Really, because it sounds like you know me all too well. Besides, I was never cut out to be a prima to begin with. For one thing I went through puberty properly and at the appropriate time. The malnutrition wasn't voluntary by the way." It wouldn't do to have rumours of eating disorders milling about before she even moved in.

"Doesn't have to stop you."

"And yet it does. Guess you misjudged my determination huh?"

"I don't think so." He seemed so sure of himself in a way Hermione could never quite manage, even when she knew she was right. "So what captured your attention? What pulled you away from dance?"

"Now now, I can't tell you everything, you'll get bored with me." It was a prospect that displeased her much more than she thought it probably should.

"I doubt that very much." They didn't speak again as people started arriving and the five boys got into position and provided the familiar soundtrack of Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan that her parents had danced around the living room to when she was a child. The boys were all good. Jesse was a born performer. Blaine sang like a dream but he was shy.

* * *

When Blaine knocked on her parent's door the following night Hermione had been twirling her wand in her right hand for two hours. She listened to her mother greeting the teenager who somehow managed to convey both excitement and nerves in three short knocks and asked herself for the 28th time that night why there were no obliviators on the way. She tried to convince herself it was some sort of moral imperative and she would do it herself, that she just felt the need to explain what was happening, even if he wouldn't remember. She looked down at him from her perch at the top of the stairs and knew she was lying.

Her father shot her an amused grin as he passed her and noticed her very pointedly not looking at the boy she had invited over who was almost bouncing and looking around the hall, apparently willing her to appear.

"Blaine right? I don't think we had a chance to talk yesterday. John Granger." He shook the boy's hand firmly. "If you're looking for my daughter she's upstairs, feel free to go get her, tell her to come down and set the table." He chuckled as the teen bounded toward the stair and he felt Hermione's glare as she was forced to stand up and pretend she hadn't just been spying on her guest. At one point he'd thought he was going to want to threaten every boy she spoke to, but so far he had gotten the impression that his daughter could crush any one of her love interests without lifting a finger. He had almost stepped in when that Krum boy had asked for her hand in marriage but she had overheard the conversation and had told him in no uncertain terms that she would not be getting married until she was out of school and well into her career, if at all. The memory never failed to make John smile to himself. Emma had even begun to recognise the very slight sadistic twist that particular smile had.

He wondered occasionally how on earth she had managed to keep the boy as a pen pal after that but she seemed to have a way with people. She was never good at making friends, he had spent hours with her crying in his lap at the start of every school year, but when she made them they were very reluctant to lose her, and who could blame them?

Blaine was both infinitely more and less intimidating than the hulking great Bulgarian that was his daughter's first boyfriend. He was clearly at least two years younger than her, and very nervous, not to mention the fact that John could have sworn he saw the boy pick up a spider and set it on a windowsill the previous evening. Unfortunately he seemed to also be the one putting a sweet smile on the face of his daughter. His beautiful, courageous, brilliant, but not at all sweet daughter. John Granger wasn't stupid. He knew what it meant that his daughter didn't even bother trying to hide her wand, and it wasn't hard to understand why it had been in her hand for so long when she clearly wasn't using it. The fact that there were no strange men in orange robes knocking on his door meant that she hadn't called whatever officials she was supposed to contact.

He comforted himself with the thought that the starry eyed boy who was currently looking at his daughter as though she hung the moon was not going to be pressuring her into anything. He didn't bother to contain his laughter as the boy decided to accompany the dishes and cutlery dancing their way to the table on the piano in the corner, belting a song he was fairly certain was from one of the Disney musicals his wife had so wanted Hermione to enjoy as a child.

"So." John started, as his wife and daughter moved into the kitchen. Emma clearly expected him to say something to the boy. "You seem fairly smitten." The boys eyes went from closed in laughter to almost cartoonishly big and entirely round in seconds. That probably wasn't what his wife wanted him to say, but it was fun.

"Hermione's really nice, and really smart, and she's made of magic." The boy blushed and his speech was just barely above a whisper but he didn't hesitate or pause in his answer. "And she watches Dr Who." John laughed loud enough for his wife to poke her head through the door and glare suspiciously at him.

* * *

"That boy is hopelessly in love with fairy tales. She'll chew him up and spit him out and she won't even know until she's done it." John is glancing out the window to where Hermione is hugging Blaine goodbye on the drive and Emma looks up from her chemistry journal, smiling at his enthusiasm.

"I'm glad you like him. You'll be disappointed when she brings Jesse home then."  
The speed with which he manages to spin around to look at her is more than comical and she chuckles to herself, gently marking the page and setting down her reading on the bedside table, knowing tonight is going to be one of those nights her husband needs to talk. "What? Who?"

She shouldn't make fun really, but he does make it so easy. "Oh you know, the older one of the performers yesterday, they seemed to get on swimmingly." And they had. She liked Jesse. He was really a spectacular singer.

"The one with the curly hair who doesn't do his shirt up?" John's lip curled in obvious disapproval.

"That would be the one."

"Absolutely not." It was sweet how he thought Hermione would give him any kind of say in her love life. He was lucky they had managed to instill sense into her at an early age because by fifteen, when she started dating, she was too far out of their reach for them to be able to do much about any choices she made. Hermione might have humored him about the Krum boy, but only because she already agreed with him.

"Oh give up darling, you wanted her to go to law school, bunch of bastards the lot of them." Emma had been working on Hermione's appreciation of the arts since the moment she first started feeling the urge to throw up in her last year at Oxford, if for no other reason than to avoid any more of the stuffy, akward people her husbands family seemed to consist of. That meant not letting her become, or marry, a barrister.

"Oh like performing arts weirdos are any better. Why can't she find a nice boy?" He was outright pouting now.

"Like Blaine?"

"Yes, one that's…harmless." She chose not to mention that Blaine was probably sixteen and wouldn't stay 'harmless' for long and that sooner or later, dating 'harmless' boys would start to be regarded as cradle robbing. If he wanted to cling to the idea of Blaine's innocence, that was his perogative.

"It all depends who you're comparing them to. Let's not forget they only need to be harmless compared to a girl who rode a dragon out of a bank vault with a stolen piece of an evil wizard's soul." It never failed to put a smile on her face when she thought about the things her daughter was capable of. Thinking about the things she still did on a regular basis tended to wipe the smile away quicker than fast, but the bad-assery (as the boy they had hired for reception would say) that was already in the past was a constant source of pride to Emma, even if she couldn't share it with any of her friends.


End file.
